


The Musings of A Former Death Eater

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Gen Work, Introspection, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 14:48:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4568499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snape tries to drown his sorrows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Musings of A Former Death Eater

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ptyx's birthday. Pytx wanted Snape-fic with Snape having doubts. Set before the series. Originally posted to Livejournal in 2009.

Snape sat huddled in the corner of the darkened pub, nursing his whiskey and ignoring the looks the other patrons were shooting in his direction. Two days and he would be back at Hogwarts. Hogwarts would be his home. Again.

Of all the things he’d done this was perhaps going to be the worst, and the stupidest. He could feel the bile already rising as he contemplated what his future would be. Lily and Potter dead. Voldemort supposedly gone. Lily’s child in hiding among Muggles. His bright career forever dimmed by circumstances he should never have allowed himself to get tangled up in. In servitude to Dumbledore for the rest of his life.

He took a sip of his drink and closed his eyes as the liquid burned down his throat. It wouldn’t do him any good to show up drunk or hungover so he was savouring every last drop.

He would need something to get him through another meeting with Dumbledore and the damned disappointment he saw whenever he looked into the Headmaster’s eyes.

 _”You could have been so much better than this,”_ Dumbledore had said. Not in so many words perhaps, but Snape knew that’s what he’d been thinking. Though there was no hiding the fact that the Old Man was right. He was better than this – than the Death Eaters, than Voldemort, than James bloody Potter, and now he had nothing to show for it. Except a life of teaching children who he hated, the offspring of those who he detested and who detested him; forever being punished for his mistakes.

Perhaps he should just head to the Continent, disappear. There were plenty of places where he could work, no questions asked.

But no matter how much he drank he always woke up to Lily’s eyes. And then Dumbledore’s. The weight of their disappointment was crushing.

He finished his drink and signalled for another. It would be his last one. If he stayed here much longer his doubts would eat away at him. He would never be a good teacher, but he couldn’t let his Slytherin’s down. They needed someone to stand up for them, just as he had needed someone. And if he could help just one person, perhaps his time at Hogwarts would be worth it.

Perhaps.


End file.
